Sermons

6/19/2011
Text: I Corinthians 12

Last week we celebrated Pentecost– the day the Church has traditionally celebrated the beginning of the Christian Church. We also celebrated our annual Commitment/Recommitment to this 8th Day Faith Community as Community, Intern and Covenant Members. This week, I want to continue the theme of Pentecost by considering what it means to create intentional community. Fred said that community – and specifically our community as one expression of the body of Christ – is a gift of the Holy Spirit which we celebrate at Pentecost. I fully agree with Fred that it is a gift of grace to live and participate in a community of brothers and sisters who are followers of Jesus.

June 12, 2011

Texts: Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-12

Today is Recommitment Sunday. We moved it from the fall to Pentecost Sunday because this day marks the birthday of the church, the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit, the day of possibilities.

The overarching possibility is a new kind of community, a community of people experiencing personal healing, and in the process of healing finding ways to witness to the grace of God and to act for the healing of the world.

June 5, 2011

I am indebted to Julia Bush, a Chaplain at Goodwin House, for this teaching.  She gave a good part of this teaching at the memorial service for the mother of my good friend Nancy Blanton.  I was so blessed that I wanted to share it with you.

Genesis 18:1-10

"The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. 3 He said, ‘My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant.

May 8, 2011

Text: Luke 24:13-35

 Our text, the focus of my teaching, is Luke 24. Before getting into the text I would like us first to think about a psychological concept called “cognitive dissonance”, and how different approaches to interpretation deal with cognitive dissonance. In general, we say that a dissonant relation exists between two things which occur together, if, in some way, they do not belong together or fit together. Biblical stories often confront us 21st century people this way. There is a clash of information. The story of Jesus’ resurrection in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is an example – a dead man coming to life. The synonyms for “dissonant” in the dictionary include harsh, jarring, grating, inharmonious, inconsistent, contradictory, incongruous, discrepant. Cognitive dissonance causes bewilderment and bewilderment is not a comfortable experience. It is a problem, but cognitive dissonance is also a motivator. Spiritually hungry people have a propensity to take it on.

Eve Tetaz
April 17, 2011

Today is Palm Sunday, a day in which the Church celebrates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem surrounded by a crowd scattering palm leaves in his path and filling the air with songs of praise and adoration.  It was true he didn’t lead an army, and he was carried through the streets on the back of a donkey, but the crowd saw in Jesus a prophet and a miracle worker – in short, a Messiah who would liberate them from the tyranny of Rome.  There is no record of Jesus presenting them with a mission statement or a criteria for discipleship other than the charge to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God, stating that his goals included the freeing of the oppressed, opening the eyes of the blind, and spreading the good news of the gospel to all people.  He didn’t speak of measurable outcomes of his mission except, perhaps, to tell his disciples that in order to gain life, they must be willing to die.  I believe Jesus followed a strategic plan, for he waited until Peter made his confession of faith before, as Matthew tells us, he set his face

March 20, 2011

 “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God”

I have been thinking a lot these past weeks because events in North Africa and the Middle East about peace.  I wish to thank Paul Fitch and Stefan for reminding us about reminding us to strive to be a peace church. We need such reminders because today peacebuilding is under constant attack and is rendered more difficult day by day. Even now the drums are beating again urging to go to war, even as two long wars are still going on.

March 13, 2011

Matthew 4:1 – 11 Lent 1

     And the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  (From here on I’m going to use the word adversary for devil – because for me, it speaks more strongly of a power at work against God.)

     And the Spirit led Jesus.  Ruach, the name for God’s Spirit, cosmic creating power, hovered over the waters, creating… in Genesis. Ruach, the life giving breath of God brought out of the valley of dry bones, in Ezekial, clattering bones, sinews and muscles coming together and the breath of life breathing into these gathering bones, making these individual human beings – alive! Ruach, in Micah, gave Micah the power to pursue justice.     It was Ruach God’s creating and life giving power that led Jesus.

March 6, 2011  

Texts:
Isaiah 49:13-16a
Matthew 6:24-33

 The Apostle Paul says in Romans 12, “Do not let the world squeeze you into its mold.” This is precisely what is happening in our country today and we must resist, but not only resist, we must move beyond resistance to help foment a non violent, bottom up revolution. This is the agenda we are working with in the Bridge to Hope mission group and today I would like to share with you some of our thinking.

February 27, 2011

It has been a while since I spoke at a Sunday morning at Eighth Day, so I am glad to take the opportunity to do so this morning. Over the last year or two, I have been doing a lot of reading, studying and thinking about our Christian faith and I want to share some of that with you. I see this more as a focused sharing rather than as a formal teaching.

The scripture that I have chosen to use, which is the basis of my speaking to you, is from the 46th psalm, the first part of the 10th verse, King James Version. It is a short, but, in my opinion, powerful passage. You see it whenever you visit the retreat center at Dayspring. It is simply this: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

February 13, 2011

Today I want to talk about a word – a very popular word – at least according to Google! This word is the name of many diverse institutions … the name of an Alpaca Farm in Fredericksburg, VA, an Arabian horse ranch, a mortgage corporation up in Baltimore, an internet service, a photography studio, a dance studio (“dance makes a difference”), a landscape business, a Bed and Breakfast, an auto repair shop, any number of churches, camps, choirs and other musical groups, a publishing company, music publishing company, retirement communities, a radio network, and most important of all – the name my favorite peanut butter. It is a word used frequently as a Christian meditation mantra or prayer word for those recovering evangelicals who are still a bit afraid of the east – a prayer word, by, by the way, which we were actually encouraged to use in this very service a few weeks ago.